Post by RTF Squared on Feb 9, 2014 3:59:10 GMT
I believe failure is one of the best ways to learn. As preparation minded people notable failures should rarely happen and the ones that do should serve good lessons. I recently had a tire blowout and a great demonstration of Murphy's law, proper/improper preparation and dumb luck.
I've been milking a pretty worn set of tires for a while now and was waiting for my part-time roommate I drive everywhere/lend my car too to break me some cash for a new set. I'm "motor vehicle operator as fuck" as I like to say and the slightly reduced traction didn't faze me. However in my "operations" I hit a patch of sharp ice chunks (looked like unplowed snow) that hurt pretty bad. It felt a little funny (but what doesn't in the CO winter) but I proceeded after a brief inspection of the tires to make sure there wasn't visible damage I drove on home.
Next day I drove my part time roommates GF to his apartment, we hung out, watched a movie then we headed back to my place where they intended to stay for the night. Got about a block from his house and the tire blew out doing a minimal speed after hitting another nasty patch o' ice. It reaches a low of -22F that night, it was about 10:30.
#aintcare as I go for my jack and tire iron. I'll Daytona this shit and be on my way. Go to the dedicated underseat location to find that sometime within the last two weeks my tire iron went on vacation. #aintcare as I call up Gecko insurance roadside, that's what it's for. Fortunately there was a sleeping bag and other warmth makers to keep the buddies GF warm. Still amazed they waited the 45 minutes I was on hold waiting to talk to somebody. Lady on the phone says it will be 45 more before somebody can come out. Not feeling like waiting a quantified 45 minutes in freezing temps, we walk back to his apartment.
About an hour later I get the call from the roadside guy that he can't find the vehicle. Geico evidently uses the GPS off my phone to pinpoint my (incorrect to the vehicle) location instead of the fucking directions I gave them. I walk over to the car and dude still can't find me. I pull out the EDC Streamlight and strobe it. He sees it from about a block away and quickly finds me. Anybody who says strobe on EDC lights is completely useless was proven wrong and I marvel in AA powered technology.
We go to change the tire. In order to drop the spare you lift the carpet in the rear hatch and turn a bolt with the tire iron. This mechanism has failed, and my tire cannot be lowered. Great. Well towing under these circumstances is covered too, so I call Geico as I walk back and wait another 45 to talk to some other person. The lady keeps me on hold while calling towing companies to get something out for me. I tell her my phone is near death and she needs to call me back. Confirms my phone number for the second time in that conversation and fourth for the night before she hangs up.
We make the icy 1-block trek back to the motorcar to grab my charging cable and their backpack/purse. Nobody calls back. Not Geico, the tow truck company, nobody. Not feeling like waiting on hold and listening to Geico advertising for another 45 minutes, I stay up till 4am waiting for a call. I fall asleep with phone in hand shopping for tire quotes. Call back when I wake up, and only waited a brisk 20 minutes this time. Instead of just getting the damn truck out, the lady wants to argue whether or not they gave the driver (who evidently showed up 90 minutes after hanging up with them) the right number. They quote two hours for the tow truck, and three later I get a call he's almost there.
I walk to the car, the driver is there with all the paperwork filled out, asks my phone number and says "that definitely wasn't it and I called four times." Hmm, explains why my phone never rang. But man that Geico lady sure wanted to argue about it for ten minutes. He quickly, professionally and courteously puts car onto truck and drags our asses home. We talk XD vs Glock on the trip and he turns out to be a cool guy.
So what did I learn?
1. Don't "milk" thing on your car, even if somebody else is supposed to be helping you monetarily with the vehicle maintenance. Nice self reliance/vehicle maintenance pussy. This could have been much worse, and part of it was due to willful neglect/being a tightwad.
2. More rigorous vehicle inspections. I check my jack and tools often when stuff falls under my passenger front seat and see them there. Also when I check my oil and clean my car. It was around 10 days before the fact that my lug wrench went missing. I've never checked the spare lowering mechanism or practiced it before despite checking the spare for air. Probably a good idea to write up a weekly checklist if that's the required frequency. I'm good about checking my oil, tire pressures and keeping my 300k mile Toyota going, but going through a checklist where I mark "yes the fucking tire iron is there" vs casually looking is better. May as well add more stuff to check off on weekly and be moar OCD about it.
3. Bring enough life vests for everybody. My warm stuff was used by the female, and if it came to it I only keep enough provisions in-car for about one night for me. I've had to sleep in a car in sub zero temps while stranded before with zero provisions. If we were in that situation we wouldn't have been much better. When I was in that situation I had friends with me both times. Obviously haven't learned enough. My car kit is OK, but needs expansion.
4. I'm buying two tire irons, and possibly putting a second spare in the car. I'm a big "two is one" guy, and a big car guy, why haven't these two met? At least one more sleeping bag/blanket/ pillow. This redundancy would have made this 14 hour ordeal a 14 minute or less ordeal. My vehicle tool kit has also been rifled through, probably by the same brother who borrowed my tire iron. Needs replacement and redundancy.
5. I pay way the hell too much money for a dood in his late twenties who drives a minivan for the quality roadside assistance. Generally the service has been great when I had a tendency to lock my keys in my car a few years back or for the few emergencies I have legit needed them for over 6 years of insuring with them. It's been around two years since I last called them and it's evidently gotten much worse. Either case, I need better contingencies, and roadside assistance hardly a backup and certainly no replacement for self reliance.
6. EDC light FTW. How did I live without one my whole life before 2 years ago? Let alone a great one like I have now? Strobe FTW too. That thing was seriously handy the whole night.
Anyway now that I've written a small book about a flat tire I'm interested to hear any other vehicle epic failure stories and how they have effected your vehicle preps and kit.
I've been milking a pretty worn set of tires for a while now and was waiting for my part-time roommate I drive everywhere/lend my car too to break me some cash for a new set. I'm "motor vehicle operator as fuck" as I like to say and the slightly reduced traction didn't faze me. However in my "operations" I hit a patch of sharp ice chunks (looked like unplowed snow) that hurt pretty bad. It felt a little funny (but what doesn't in the CO winter) but I proceeded after a brief inspection of the tires to make sure there wasn't visible damage I drove on home.
Next day I drove my part time roommates GF to his apartment, we hung out, watched a movie then we headed back to my place where they intended to stay for the night. Got about a block from his house and the tire blew out doing a minimal speed after hitting another nasty patch o' ice. It reaches a low of -22F that night, it was about 10:30.
#aintcare as I go for my jack and tire iron. I'll Daytona this shit and be on my way. Go to the dedicated underseat location to find that sometime within the last two weeks my tire iron went on vacation. #aintcare as I call up Gecko insurance roadside, that's what it's for. Fortunately there was a sleeping bag and other warmth makers to keep the buddies GF warm. Still amazed they waited the 45 minutes I was on hold waiting to talk to somebody. Lady on the phone says it will be 45 more before somebody can come out. Not feeling like waiting a quantified 45 minutes in freezing temps, we walk back to his apartment.
About an hour later I get the call from the roadside guy that he can't find the vehicle. Geico evidently uses the GPS off my phone to pinpoint my (incorrect to the vehicle) location instead of the fucking directions I gave them. I walk over to the car and dude still can't find me. I pull out the EDC Streamlight and strobe it. He sees it from about a block away and quickly finds me. Anybody who says strobe on EDC lights is completely useless was proven wrong and I marvel in AA powered technology.
We go to change the tire. In order to drop the spare you lift the carpet in the rear hatch and turn a bolt with the tire iron. This mechanism has failed, and my tire cannot be lowered. Great. Well towing under these circumstances is covered too, so I call Geico as I walk back and wait another 45 to talk to some other person. The lady keeps me on hold while calling towing companies to get something out for me. I tell her my phone is near death and she needs to call me back. Confirms my phone number for the second time in that conversation and fourth for the night before she hangs up.
We make the icy 1-block trek back to the motorcar to grab my charging cable and their backpack/purse. Nobody calls back. Not Geico, the tow truck company, nobody. Not feeling like waiting on hold and listening to Geico advertising for another 45 minutes, I stay up till 4am waiting for a call. I fall asleep with phone in hand shopping for tire quotes. Call back when I wake up, and only waited a brisk 20 minutes this time. Instead of just getting the damn truck out, the lady wants to argue whether or not they gave the driver (who evidently showed up 90 minutes after hanging up with them) the right number. They quote two hours for the tow truck, and three later I get a call he's almost there.
I walk to the car, the driver is there with all the paperwork filled out, asks my phone number and says "that definitely wasn't it and I called four times." Hmm, explains why my phone never rang. But man that Geico lady sure wanted to argue about it for ten minutes. He quickly, professionally and courteously puts car onto truck and drags our asses home. We talk XD vs Glock on the trip and he turns out to be a cool guy.
So what did I learn?
1. Don't "milk" thing on your car, even if somebody else is supposed to be helping you monetarily with the vehicle maintenance. Nice self reliance/vehicle maintenance pussy. This could have been much worse, and part of it was due to willful neglect/being a tightwad.
2. More rigorous vehicle inspections. I check my jack and tools often when stuff falls under my passenger front seat and see them there. Also when I check my oil and clean my car. It was around 10 days before the fact that my lug wrench went missing. I've never checked the spare lowering mechanism or practiced it before despite checking the spare for air. Probably a good idea to write up a weekly checklist if that's the required frequency. I'm good about checking my oil, tire pressures and keeping my 300k mile Toyota going, but going through a checklist where I mark "yes the fucking tire iron is there" vs casually looking is better. May as well add more stuff to check off on weekly and be moar OCD about it.
3. Bring enough life vests for everybody. My warm stuff was used by the female, and if it came to it I only keep enough provisions in-car for about one night for me. I've had to sleep in a car in sub zero temps while stranded before with zero provisions. If we were in that situation we wouldn't have been much better. When I was in that situation I had friends with me both times. Obviously haven't learned enough. My car kit is OK, but needs expansion.
4. I'm buying two tire irons, and possibly putting a second spare in the car. I'm a big "two is one" guy, and a big car guy, why haven't these two met? At least one more sleeping bag/blanket/ pillow. This redundancy would have made this 14 hour ordeal a 14 minute or less ordeal. My vehicle tool kit has also been rifled through, probably by the same brother who borrowed my tire iron. Needs replacement and redundancy.
5. I pay way the hell too much money for a dood in his late twenties who drives a minivan for the quality roadside assistance. Generally the service has been great when I had a tendency to lock my keys in my car a few years back or for the few emergencies I have legit needed them for over 6 years of insuring with them. It's been around two years since I last called them and it's evidently gotten much worse. Either case, I need better contingencies, and roadside assistance hardly a backup and certainly no replacement for self reliance.
6. EDC light FTW. How did I live without one my whole life before 2 years ago? Let alone a great one like I have now? Strobe FTW too. That thing was seriously handy the whole night.
Anyway now that I've written a small book about a flat tire I'm interested to hear any other vehicle epic failure stories and how they have effected your vehicle preps and kit.
At least I didn't have to work on an angled driveway in 40F weather with 30mph winds, so there's always that...